The Blaisdell Blog

  The new year is traditionally a time of introspection.   Part of this is studying the array of Christmas cards I received this year.   Several years ago, I discovered something interesting about Christmas cards.   They inadvertently take the pulse of the nation.   Sure, some have family pictures, animals, trees, scenes of snow or an array of stars, but there is always a predominant color.   That color is what I have come to look for as a reflection of the mood of the country.   These cards represent a very personal choice.   What would make diverse people across the country consistently choose one color over another? Part of the reason is that color has strong psychological ties to our subconscious mind.   Marketers know the importance of color.   Customers make an initial judgement on a product in just 90 seconds and up to 90% of that judgement is based on color.   Last year, the year of COVID, the year of sheltering in place, the year of economic destruction, the cards I re

  I had a pretty good run at comic books as a child.   I started out on Little Lulu, then went for Donald Duck in a big way, especially the stories that featured Uncle Scrooge and his money bin (clearly, I was a natural economist and appreciated the advantages of capitalism even at a young age).   But then I discovered the Superman comics and never looked back.   The man of steel was my kind of guy. The first story I ever wrote was a story for Superman Comics.   I even sent it to them for publication (handwritten on a Big Chief table!).   I got back a rejection but also a warm and complimentary letter encouraging me to keep writing and come see them after I finished school.   I love the world of fantasy that comic books created.   But I knew it was a fantasy and I lived in the real world. Here is where this column gets less whimsical and more acidic. I was forced by both circumstances and intellectual rigor to adhere to the Biblical passage:   When I was a child, I spoke like a c

  In the fall of 1994, I was flying home on a TWA jet and deeply engrossed in my latest book, The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett.   This book is a nonfiction account of mankind’s battle with the microbial world and why we seem to be losing the fight.   Ebola had just reared its head on a world-wide scale and this on the heels of AIDS-HIV becoming a disease that every family seemed to know in a personal way.   Garrett is a meticulous researcher and wrote a compelling narrative on a number of serious diseases that, thanks to modern transportation, circle the globe in a way unheard of a century ago. She talked of the success we had with smallpox (brought on in good part by forced vaccination of the entire world) as well as our apparent failures apropos to AIDS-HIV.             During the flight a fellow passenger asked about the book. After a brief description of the contents my companion asked if I thought we would ever really fac